Link Between Childhood Trauma and Adult Chronic Pain: McGill University Research

2023-12-20 21:36:41

MONTREAL — Negative childhood experiences are associated with a higher probability of chronic pain in adulthood, finds a meta-analysis led by a researcher at McGill University.

More specifically, individuals who reported being physically abused as children were subsequently significantly more likely to report chronic pain or pain-related disability as adults.

“Negative experiences during childhood are associated with different health problems that can be understood on a psychological level, but also on a physical level,” recalled Professor André Bussières, from the School of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy. from McGill.

“We wondered if, in fact, there was a link that might exist between these negative experiences in children and later, in adults, long-term consequences.”

A direct negative childhood experience (such as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect) combined with an indirect negative experience (domestic violence or mental illness within the home) increased the risk of chronic pain or disability caused by pain in adulthood.

The risk of chronic pain in adulthood increased progressively depending on whether the subject had been the victim of one, two, three, four or more negative experience(s) in childhood.

The increased risk of chronic pain ranged from 31% with a single exposure to 98% with multiple exposures.

Professor Bussières and his colleagues come to these conclusions following having reviewed around sixty studies on the subject.

“These painful disorders being very common, a modest increase in risk implies a large number of additional cases and therefore a significant impact on the health of the population,” emphasize the authors.

Exposure to a negative childhood experience is associated with the most common chronic pain, such as back pain, neck pain or other musculoskeletal disorders, leading to enormous costs for the health system, they point out. .

The exact mechanism underlying the association between chronic pain in adulthood and adverse childhood experiences is not well understood. A change in gene expression that affects brain structure and function, greater sensitivity to pain later in life and less cortisone production in adulthood are among the hypotheses being studied.

“The other (hypothesis) is that it causes stress which is continuous in the individual, which can become unconscious,” said Professor Bussières. We do not necessarily remember all the events that have happened to us during our lives and which might cause possible fatigue of the nervous system, difficulty controlling pain, (…) and therefore it happens more at the system level. central nervous system.”

Approximately one in five Canadians suffer from chronic pain. A study published in 2016 calculated that one billion children ― or half of the world’s children ― are exposed to physical, sexual or emotional violence every year.

The findings of the new study were published by the medical journal European Journal of Psychotraumatology.

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